Proposal of UNESCO Chair in Okayama University and Education for Sustainable Development
Yoshiro ONO1, Isao AOYAMA2, Hideki YAMAMOTO3, Shino MOHRI4, Masahiro HABU5
Graduate School of Environmental Science, Okayama University
3-1-1, Tsushima-Naka, Okayama City 700-8530 Japan
Web page: http://ambiente.okayama-u.ac.jp/en/index.html
1 Professor, e-mail:
2 Professor, e-mail:
3 Associate Professor, e-mail:
4 Associate Professor, e-mai.:
5 Secretary Staff, e-mail:
Abstract
In Okayama, where more than 70% of its land is agricultural or natural, and where a lot of irrigation canals run across the city, activities for awareness-raising towards environmental conservation for communities by Non-Governmental Organizations and Civil Society Organizations. Many of the activities have been designed and implemented in cooperation with municipal governments and educational institutions from primary to tertiary. In addition, activities for international understanding by NGOs conducting international cooperation have been done in cooperation with formal and non-formal educational sectors. Kominkan (Community Centers) has been playing the key role for coordinating such activities. These activities made the environment for United Nations University to designate Okayama as one of the Regional Centres of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development (RCE) in 2005.
In Okayama University, many professors and students have been participating in these activities either in their personal capacity or on behalf of the university or their faculties. The Graduate School of Environmental Science, Okayama University, has been designing the programme to contribute its knowledge to building sustainable societies both in Okayama and in the international level, after being selected as one of “Initiatives for Attractive Education in Graduate Schools” by Ministry of Education in Japan, and some parts of the programme have already been implemented. Okayama University decided to introduce the programme to disseminate its knowledge both for local communities in Okayama and developing countries in Asia through inter-university cooperation, and submitted to UNESCO the proposal of UNESCO Chair in Education for Sustainable Development on April, 2006.
1. Introduction
Partnership, cooperation and collaboration among stakeholders is the key to promoting efforts of Education for Sustainable Development (hereinafter, ESD). International documents such as the International Implementation Scheme for the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (hereinafter, UNDESD) identified that it would be required to make UNDESD successful. Okayama ESD Workshop held in 2005 by stakeholders from Okayama area and international experts and supported by UNESCO and United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (hereinafter, UNU-IAS), dealt with cooperation between formal and non-formal education, and both needs and challenges of networking among them in order to network and share all fields of knowledge within various contexts, and to create new knowledge to build a sustainable society, were identified in the discussions,. At the same time, it was agreed that it would be indispensable to foster a Coordinators or Facilitators as an intermediary among ESD stakeholders. Formal and non-formal educational institutions, in particular universities and higher education institutions have the key roles to do it. Especially, in the era of Knowledge Society, the perspective of Life-long learning should be appreciated, and collaboration and cooperation among formal, non-formal and informal education actors, from pre-primary to higher education level should be promoted.
2. ESD and Okayama
In Okayama, there have been a lot of the NGOs and Civil Society Organizations (hereinafter, CSOs) engaging in humanitarian and development assistance in developing countries, and in environmental conservation and education programmes at local level. In 2005, stakeholders from such activities gathered and established Okayama ESD Promotion Commission in order to promote networking among them and coordinate the activities for promoting and disseminating Education for Sustainable Development (hereinafter with ESD). This effort was acknowledged by UNU-IAS and Okayama was recognized as one of the Regional Centres of Expertise on ESD (hereinafter, RCE).
Many professors and students have been participating in these activities either in their personal capacity or on behalf of the university or their faculties. The Graduate School of Environmental Science, Okayama University, has been designing the programme to contribute its knowledge to building sustainable societies both in Okayama and in the international level, after being selected as one of “Initiatives for Attractive Education in Graduate Schools” by Ministry of Education in Japan, and some parts of the programme has already been implemented. Okayama University decided to introduce the programme to disseminate its knowledge and technology both for local communities in Okayama and developing countries in Asia through inter-university cooperation, and submitted to UNESCO, through Japanese National Commission for UNESCO, the proposal of UNESCO Chair in ESD on April, 2006.
3. ESD activities in Okayama
Okayama is located along the Inland Sea, Seto-nai-kai, and more than 70% of its land is agricultural or natural, and a lot of irrigation canals run across the city. Here in Okayama, activities for awareness-raising towards environmental conservation for communities by NGOs and CSOs have been taken.
More than 10 years ago, Okayama municipal government alerted that there were too many domestic and industrial wastes to dispose by its facilities. Many groups of citizens gathered to consider how the mass waste problem should be deal with by participatory approach. Then, Community Centers (Kominkan) have played key roles to promote the citizen’s awareness-raising. This was the opportunity to establish many CSOs dealing with the environmental issues both at local and international level in Okayama. And this is the very foundation for educational activities towards environmental sustainability in Okayama.
Many activities have not just been for natural environment, but also with community development or activities of social aspects as to how we should lead a sustainable live. In many cases, Kominkans provides many channels for educational activities, such as lecture series, workshops, environmental research and so on, with any citizens who would like to learn for contributing to a sustainable society. In Okayama, every Kominkan is managed by the department of Okayama municipal government, which is in charged of non-formal education. Recently, Kominkans cooperate with primary and secondary schools to provide the opportunities of environmental education to be held in the Period of Integrated Study in schools.
In Okayama, ESD efforts have been mainly led by non-formal education organizations such as Kominkans, NGOs and CSOs. University professors, school teachers and so on, have been joining to these activities mainly in their personal capacity. That means that there has been a lack of institutional involvement of universities and schools for promoting ESD. By introducing ESD perspectives to universities and schools, however, they have been beginning to involve themselves to the community activities, delivering their representative or experts to the activities. In some cases, collaborative activities have been promoted for environmental education towards children and adults.
4. ESD in Okayama University
4.1 Introduction of the Environmental Sustainability in University Curriculum
In order to respond the new need of the national and local society for a lifestyle in harmony with the natural environment, Okayama University established the Faculty of Environmental Science and Technology in 1995; it is the first university in Japan at which ‘environment’ is included in its faculty name. It has been contributing knowledge and human resources of natural and engineering science for the environment. Once it got recognized, from 1990s to 2000, that the environmental problems were connected with social inequality as well as imbalance of economic development, the need of new approach for the undergraduate and graduate education was also recognized. In 2005, Okayama University established the Graduate School of Environmental Science as an institution of a new, holistic and creative knowledge that represents a fusion of the natural, health, social and cultural sciences to realize a safe, secure and sustainable society, distributing environmental studies across the university.
In 2003, the project of “Research on Strategic Solid Waste Management for Sustainable Society” was adopted as one of “the 21st century Center of Excellence (COE) programmes” by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture Sports and Science and Technology (MEXT) for the outstanding projects of the latest research. This COE project enabled Okayama University to be the international center for research exchange on environmental management and sustainability in Asia-Pacific region.
In 2005 the programme of “Environmental Ethics - Health and the Environment” was adopted under “Initiatives for Attractive Education in Graduate Schools” of MEXT, to enhance the performance of the Graduate School. This programme; provides the graduate students who wish to be experts on the environment, with opportunities to undertake the practical field research in developing countries in cooperation with their professors and NGOs, having sent 28 graduate students and professors to 12 countries in 2005; and undertakes collaborative actions creating sustainable societies in Okayama and Seto-uchi region, and globally, in cooperation with Okayama ESD Promotion Commission, NGOs and civil society organizations.
Okayama University provides some teachers and educational institutions staffs with the opportunities to study and research curriculum and programme development for introducing ESD. It can make educational innovation happen to any place of education at local level. When it comes to the educational activities by individual professors outside the campus, many of them has been engaged in CSOs regarding environmental conservation and community development. In addition, many professors lecture about their major in global and local environment, within the course set by non-formal education institutions and local educational authorities, which is open to the public citizens. From this standpoint, professors of Okayama University have been contributing to distributing their knowledge necessary for realizing sustainability to the citizens.
Hence, Okayama University has proposed to UNESCO that Okayama University would have a UNESCO Chair with regard to Regional Centre of Expertise for Research and Education for Sustainable Development.
4.2 the Proposed UNESCO Chair programme and its concept
Okayama University will continue to commit itself to the activities of ESD in Okayama region after the term of the Initiative: “Environmental Ethics - Health and the Environment”, and in addition to extend its involvement for the proposed UNESCO Chair. The proposed UNESCO Chair in Okayama University will collaborate with NGOs, Okayama ESD Promotion Commission (an RCE-coordinating organ), municipal governments, University Consortium Okayama, etc. The Chair considers providing staff working for NGOs, civil society organizations and community-based organizations, and government officials, school teachers, students and citizens, who are from domestic communities and developing and developed countries, with opportunities to learn trans-disciplinary and integrated studies for creating a sustainable society locally, nationally, regionally and globally. The Chair works on cooperation between formal and non-formal education, for building sustainable societies in Okayama, and Seto-uchi region where Okayama is located, and also in global level. The Chair integrates both local knowledge in Okayama and Seto-uchi region and those from international community. The Chair also strives to spread the conception of ESD and put in practice ESD activities in Japan, Asia-Pacific region and Africa, realizing sustainable development through inter-university cooperation.
The Plan of the Proposed Chair Programme has been drafted, taking into consideration that Okayama University should contribute both to local communities of Seto-uchi region, and to communities overseas, especially in developing countries. Therefore, the Proposed Chair will be composed of 2 units to provide research and learning opportunities for building a sustainable society; local community unit, and international unit. But they will not be supposed to stand separately. Any learners and researchers under this proposed Chair Programme can take courses of both units.
Firstly, the local community unit of the Proposed Chair Programme will provide leaning spaces for populations in the local communities surrounding Okayama University. At the early stage, the existing educational and research activities of individual professors are supposed to be utilized for setting a framework of ESD curriculum, and also activities of CSOs are utilized. Individual activities are put on the framework of the proposed UNESCO Chair on research and learning for sustainable development, as a cluster of tree of “ESD activities”. Local populations can learn on and for a sustainable society al local level, and at the same time, students in Okayama University also can have an opportunity to learn in participatory and practical approach. Thus, Okayama University will share its knowledge necessary for realizing a sustainable society with local communities.
Secondly, the international unit will offer knowledge for and on sustainability to overseas universities and their surrounding communities, under inter-university cooperation agreements. In this term, the proposed Chair will utilize most the on- going inter-university cooperation with many Asian University. Students of overseas university can take a trans-disciplinary course of natural, social and medical sciences in Okayama University. And students also can take a practical course to go to a research field in developing countries and to research and learn for a sustainable society. Okayama University has been a research center of Asian region for 3R initiative, solid waste management, hydrology and climate change, and thus Okayama University will contribute to building a sustainable society in Asia.
The concept of the proposed Chair is “transmission of knowledge between university and civil life”. There are many educational places which should be used for realizing a sustainable society, like formal education institutions, non-formal education institutions, higher education institutions, media, enterprises, national and local governments, families, and so on. They have each role of education, and unnecessary duplication for entities at different levels to do the same things, should be prevented.
While non-formal education institutions like CSOs have much advantage to join among citizens, higher education institutions are comparatively not good at doing so. Higher education institutions should create knowledge and transmit them to the public and private sector, and civil life. Okayama University cooperates with such educational actors to transmit and share knowledge necessary for sustainability.